Inspiration, ideas and information to help women build public speaking content, confidence and credibility. Denise Graveline is a Washington, DC-based speaker coach who has coached nearly 100 TEDMED and TEDx speakers--many featured on TED.com--and prepared speakers to testify before the U.S. Congress, appear on national television, and deliver industry keynotes. She offers 1:1 coaching and group workshops in public speaking, presentation and media interview skills to both men and women.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Representative Maxine Waters, who represents California's 35th District, last week delivered a first-of-its-kind speech on the floor of the House of Representatives. The speech was made up entirely from Facebook and Twitter posts from her constituents and social media followers, who used the hashtag #ourspeech to flag their contributions.

Followers were asked in mid-October to post what they wanted to include in the speech, which was delivered last week. They chose to highlight a range of issues from jobs and the economy to education funding and gridlock in Congress. "Social media has offered us all a way to expand democracy. Now I want to bring it to the floor of Congress to let Washington know exactly how you feel. If you are tired of only politicians having a say in the debate, now is your time to change that," Waters said in a statement.

Waters's office has issued the speech in writing, showing the posts (and Twitter handles) of those contributing. You can watch the video of it below. It's worth listening to all the way through--turns out you can put a speech together from crowdsourced contributions:

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